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Navy vet tapped for counterterrorism job

June 12, 2005|By Items compiled from Tribune news services.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Bush on Friday named retired Vice Adm. John Scott Redd to direct the nation's counterterrorism center, designed to piece together worldwide information about threats to the United States.

Redd, 60, who once commanded the Navy's 5th Fleet in the Middle East, also served in Iraq as deputy director of the temporary coalition authority and as director of the bipartisan commission that investigated how U.S. intelligence went wrong in stating that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

If confirmed by the Senate, he will run a center that is staffed by about 300 officials from the FBI, the CIA and other intelligence and security agencies.